Members and friends, we hope you’re having a great autumn! Some of our members, including Ilana Masad and Maris Kreizman, are working with the Freelance Solidarity Project, the digital media wing of the National Writers Union, on a project aiming to raise pay rates for book critics across the board. To that end, they’re collecting data about the current rates that book critics are being offered and working for. If you’d like to participate, you can fill out their survey here.
Member Reviews/Essays
NBCC Emerging Critics Fellow Hannah Bonner wrote “Echoes of the Original: On the Task of Translating Maria Schneider” for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Anne Charles reviewed Ronya Othmann’s The Summersfor The Gay & Lesbian Review.
Ron Slate reviewed Edan Lepucki’s Time’s Mouth and José Eduardo Agualusa’s A Practical Guide to Levitation, translated by Daniel Hahn, for On The Seawall.
Former NBCC President Laurie Hertzel reviewed So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan and The Last Supper Club by Matthew Batt for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Stephanie Barron’s Jane and the Final Mystery for BookTrib.
Jenny Shank wrote about the Catholic themes in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novels Silver Nitrate and Mexican Gothic in the December issue of America.
Cory Oldweiler wrote about the fiction of Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan, translated by Samuel Wilder, for The Markaz Review, and about the late Czech author Hana Andronikova’s final novel, Heaven Has No Ground, translated by Roman Kostovski, for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Kai Maristed’s “July 14. Bastille Day” was published in On the Seawall.
Christoph Irmscher reviewed Catherine McNeur’s Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science for The Wall Street Journal.
Sarah Kain Gutowski reviewed Sally Wen Mao’s The Kingdom of Surfaces for the New York Journal of Books.
Frank Housh reviewed Rachel Maddow’s Prequelfor Books & Review.
Jennifer Howard reviewed two middle-grade novels inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl” for The New York Times Book Review.
Hamilton Cain reviewed Yascha Mounk’s The Identity Trapfor On the Seawall.
Paul Wilner reviewed Pastures of the Empty Page: Fellow Writers on the Life and Legacy of Larry McMurtry, edited by George Getschow, for ZYZZYVA.
Ryan Chapman reviewed Lexi Freiman’s The Book of Ayn for the Los Angeles Times.
Kylie Gellatly reviewed Amanda Larson’s Gut for RHINO.
Charles Green reviewed Justin Torres’ Blackouts for The Gay & Lesbian Review and Dan Sugralinov’s The Crafter, Book 1: The Mysterious Game for Blueink Review.
Nell Beram reviewed three books for Shelf Awareness: Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond by Henry Winkler; Dressing the Part: Television’s Most Stylish Shows by Hal Rubenstein; and Pandora’s Box: How Guts, Guile, and Greed Upended TV by Peter Biskind.
Patricia Schultheis wrote about the legacy of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Ryefor the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Mary Maxwell reviewed David Yezzi’s biography of Anthony Hecht, Late Romance: A Poet’s Life, for On the Seawall.
Joan Frank reviewed Claire Keegan’s So Late in the Day for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Allan Graubard reviewed Emerald Wounds: Selected PoemsbyJoyce Mansour, translated by Emilie Moorhouse,for Rain Taxi.
Former NBCC board member Mark Athitakis reviewed David Thomson’s history of war films, The Fatal Alliance, for the Los Angeles Times, and Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson’s history of the AR-15, American Gun, for Alta.
Tobias Carroll wrote about The Road Washes Out in Spring, Baron Wormser’s memoir of living off the grid, for the Portland Press Herald, and about some October books in translation for Words Without Borders.
For The Red Hook Star-Revue, Michael Quinn reviewed I Must Be Dreaming by Roz Chast.
Tom Peebles reviewed Louisa Lim’s Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong on his personal blog and on the American University of Paris’ Tocqueville 21 website.
Martha Anne Toll reviewed Bernardine Watson’s Transplantfor the Washington Independent Review of Books.
For The Tangential, Jay Gabler recently reviewed Patrick Stewart’s Making It So and Naoise Dolan’s The Happy Couple.
Member Interviews
Former NBCC President Tom Beer spoke with Daniel Clowes about his graphic novel Monica for Kirkus Reviews.
At InsideHook, Tobias Carroll interviewed Hannah Carlson about her book Pockets and Douglas Brunt about his book The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel.
Samantha Neugebauer interviewed poet Walter Ancarrow about his debut poetry collection, Etymologies, for Apogee.
NBCC Vice President/Emerging Critics Fellowship and Online Michael Schaub interviewed Justin Torres about this National Book Award-winning novel Blackouts for the Orange County Register.
Member News
Hélène Cardona’s The Abduction, her translation of Le Rapt by Maram Al-Masri, was reviewed by Ron Starbuck.
Kevin Anthony Brown’s most recent book, Countée Cullen’s Harlem Renaissance, is due out from Parlor Press in 2023. This book may seem to be about one thing: history; art history; cultural history; Mexican history; or political history. Closer reading reveals that what these books have in common is related but distinct: namely, oral history and its transmission through the generations via elder griots at the intersection of oral and written traditions. Editors and reviewers interested in covering this title may contact the author directly or the publisher here.
Mary Mackey’s screenplay The Stand In was an Official Selection for Best Feature Film Screenplay at the City of Angels Women’s Film Festival in Los Angeles. The screenplay is an adaptation of Mackey’s novel The Stand In. In addition, Mackey’s most recent book Creativity: Where Poems Begin was nominated for the 2023 42nd annual Northern California Book Award (NCBA) in Creative Nonfiction as one of the best works by a northern California author published in 2022.
“Capitol Hill Books” by Peter Miller is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.